


For the Son of Dimitrius

by jeien



Category: Sound Horizon
Genre: Afterlife, Death Rituals, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6456052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeien/pseuds/jeien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leontius remains as a half-spirit after the battle of Ilion. Only a few months later did someone come to put him to rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Son of Dimitrius

**Author's Note:**

> I should have gone to sleep two hours ago. Why did I feel the need to write a Leontius fic. Why did I do this.

Leontius’s long limbs plant themselves in the gray sands of Hades. _Here at last_ , he thinks. His own journey to Hades had been delayed by several months. Survivors of the bloodbath in Ilion were few and the burial rites had been hastily prepared. Leontius had not expected to be one of the warriors whose rites had been botched. He had not expected to still be within the debris of his fallen city.

Going to the afterlife was every warrior’s last consolation: reunions with brothers in arms and loved ones, recognition for lives valiantly lived, and a chance at peace for the righteous. His family had all been slain. They were waiting for him to join them—but instead, he had walked the circumference of ravaged Ilion as a half-spirit. And he had been alone.

His feet had traced the paths he had walked since childhood: the palace, the temples, the city square, the rampart. Leontius had dug up every memory he etched onto the earth with his footsteps and held them close. If he was unable to join his family and the people he cared for, he would have at least had that. 

“Son of Dimitrius.”

Instinct forced him to turn, although no one had called him by that title since his father had died. His eyes had met a dull magenta. The man who had stood before him was the warrior who bested him.

“Amethystos,” his voice had breathed out. “Why have you come? How can you see me?”

“Come,” Amethystos had ordered. No sword or sheath had rested by his sides and he had worn no armor. His tunic and cloak had been caked in dirt and wood ash. “I prepared funeral pyres for those who had been thrown into a mass grave by the palace. You are the last of them. I will complete your rites and take you to Hades myself.”

He had followed Amethystos through a winding path that crossed through the devastation that could have already been long forgotten by that point. They passed through the palace gates, walking around where the ground looked like it had been pried open by human hands. The splendor of the fortress  had fled like a puff of air, leaving nothing behind but white rocks haphazardly tossed about by destiny’s fancy. But Leontius had noticed that some of the rubble was cleared away by towards where his father’s throne used to sit—instead, a stone about their size stood to greet them.

They had approached the stone. As Amethystos knelt, Leontius had caught the words engraved onto the stone’s base: _For Prince Leontius of Arcadia, son of the hero-king Dimitrius, rests here. May all remember his righteousness_. He had watched Amethystos take a chisel and hammer from his belt, where his weapons had once been, and carve into the stone. It had not an artisan’s work, but the picture was apparent: the battle of Ilion.

Leontius had felt a new weightlessness. Darkness had started to veil his eyes. The last thing he saw in the surface world was Amethystos—and Amethystos had been the first thing he saw in the violet-gray caverns of the underworld, standing inside a skiff with an oar.

“Come,” Amethystos had called from the skiff. “We’re almost there.”

He had no fare to pay for the trip. Amethystos had said his fare was already paid for. Leontius had entered the boat and they pushed off the shore quietly.

“As I thought,” Leontius had said, “you are a kind man.”

Amethystos had hummed a pitchless note and steadied the skiff as the tides began to grow harsher. The waters had moaned faintly with the voices of lost souls that had fallen into them. Soon, they had beached onto another shore. Another gate lay ahead.

 _Here at last_. Leontius looks back as Amethystos was preparing to shove off again.

“Will you not join me?”

Amethystos does not answer for some time. “I cannot.”

“Why so?”

“It is my punishment for defying the goddess,” Amethystos answers. “Death is forbidden to me. But you are favored by her. For a man such as yourself, you will find peace in this afterlife.”

“Will I never see you, then?”

“No.”

“I see.” Leontius takes his time to form his next words. “Know that I stand by my words, Amethystos. You are a kind man. An honorable one. Even if you do not believe so yourself.”

“Believe what you will.”

He steps towards the next gate, where a red-hooded young woman stood guard. She opens the doors for him and, with a last glance at Amethystos, steps through. Leontius only finds out the entire truth once he reunites with his mother and meets another young woman who bears Amethystos’s face.

 _Moira has dealt you a heavy burden_ , Leontius thinks. He chooses not to tell them about the time he spent as a half-spirit. He does not talk about his journey to Hades. He mentions no name. Leontius thinks that he would have wanted it that way. _May you walk your own path virtuously, my brother Elefseus_.


End file.
